


(Not So) Little Secret

by sottovoce81



Series: A Fresh Start [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Chris/Melissa/Sheriff are never actually on screen, Coitus Interruptus, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, I wasn’t sure how to tag this, Multi, OT3, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Single Parent Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski is Good with Kids, Stiles Stilinski is a Little Shit, Stiles Stilinski is a Nice Thing, Stiles finds out, background oc children, derek Hale just wants to go on a nice date, except they don’t interrupt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25510606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sottovoce81/pseuds/sottovoce81
Summary: Stiles looks at him like he’s going crazy. “Derek—““Your dad is entertaining guests,” Derek hisses at him. He begging Stiles to understand it. But he can’t say the words more plainly. He respects John and Stiles both too much.“You’re acting like—“ Stiles cuts himself off. “I mean it’s not like…” He glances at the cars in the driveway. Then he looks back at Derek with a weird expression. “It’s not like—“But Derek never finds out what it’s not like because someone inside makes a very loud noise and Stiles’ eyes grow horrified.————————————————Stiles finds out his dad is dating Chris Argent as well as Melissa.
Relationships: Chris Argent/Melissa McCall/Sheriff Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: A Fresh Start [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/878208
Comments: 9
Kudos: 214





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t plan to have feelings for Chris/Sheriff together in this particular series but all the grandpa practicing and competitiveness between them forced it upon me. Whoops! Now I ship the threesome of Chris/Melissa/John a little too hard to ignore even though they technically are never seen on screen in this fic.
> 
> Update 8.25.20 I’m getting more feelings!! Prepare for a Chris/Mel/John side-plot to arise any day now! The rest of this particular installment will be heavily focused on them. Not sure how many chapters yet but I’ve got about four separate scenes somewhat worked out in my noggin.

It’s on their fifth official date—Stiles would argue that it’s their thirteenth date, but he is wrong because though Derek loves his kids more than life itself he does not consider it a date if they are included.

Nothing is more attractive than watching Stiles carry Maisy around like it’s second nature for him to just lodge her on his hip and go about his day. He has never once flinched when her claws have come out. The first time she managed to change her whole face, Stiles had even leaned in to where she was being held in Derek’s arms and kissed her wrinkly brow like it was nothing. Like there weren’t tiny razor sharp baby teeth in the drooling mouth that then kissed him back.

Nothing makes Derek’s heart lurch like watching how very seriously Stiles takes everything Caleb does—always careful to consider every question even when it’s, “Do you think heffalumps and woozles are scary in real life or are they like Daddy?” (Stiles doesn’t even so much as smirk in Derek’s direction. He considers the question for all its worth and ends up with a conclusion that heffalumps and woozles are probably not scary and mean; they’re probably just trying to take care of their families the best way they know how. He even has episodes to reference as evidence.) He treats Caleb like he matters with every opinion and thought he listens to—and his son has plenty of both to share.

It makes his breath catch in his throat and something in his gut flip upside down. There aren’t the right words to explain how much he enjoys watching Stiles with his kids. They’ve only been dating for a month and a half, but he’s already beginning to suspect that he’s going to consider his kids to be Stiles’ kids before they’re grown.

However, all that aside, he also desperately hordes moments alone with Stiles. He looks forward to those times when he can focus his whole attention on Stiles and just enjoy his presence. He looks forward to the times when he gets to see the smile that Stiles seems to only bring out when he’s watching Derek, all soft and small and wonderous like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. So on date number five—not thirteen—with Laura at home with the kids and no pressing desire for the date to end, Derek mentions that they accidentally left Maisy’s jacket at John’s house. As anticipated, Stiles swings the car into the other lane and says they might as well drive across town to go grab it. It’s in the opposite direction from Derek’s house and it’ll add almost thirty minutes on to their drive home from dinner, but he doesn’t complain.

They continue talking about nothing and everything of importance and Stiles is in the middle of telling him about a story Caleb has been making up about his dinosaur toys when they pull up to the Sheriff's house. Derek notes the two extra cars in the driveway but doesn’t think much of it because it’s Chris’s and Melissa’s cars and they’re over all the time. But he tunes out of Stiles’ recounting of Dinosaur Bob’s character traits long enough to check that they won’t be interrupting.

He hears the very female moan first. Then he hears Chris Argent say something about John Stilinski’s...anatomy...that he will never ever be able to unhear.

Derek immediately pulls his hearing back in. “Stiles!” he hisses frantically.

Stiles is already on the porch steps, but he turns and cuts off mid-sentence when he sees Derek’s face. “What?” It’s entirely too loud. He might as well be shouting for the way it makes Derek feel like someone inside is going to hear them out here. Thank god none of them are werewolves!

“We can’t go in there,” he says, attempting some calm. He’s aware he’s blushing. He briefly considers shoving his hands over his ears when they accidentally catch on a noise he doesn’t want to investigate.

Stiles’ brow wrinkles in confusion. “You said Maisy’s jacket was on the kitchen counter. I’m just gonna run in and grab it. Dad won’t care.”

“Stiles!” Derek whisper yells again when it looks like he’s going to keep heading for the door. “You can’t go in there,” he tries again, hoping Stiles will read the urgency in his tone.

“Why?”

“He has guests!”

Stiles looks at him flatly. “It’s just Chris and Melissa. I drop by all the time and Dad literally won’t care if I’m interrupting their private parent dinner. You can wait out here if you want, I’ll just be a minute.”

He spins on his heel and even though it has been grounded into Derek since he was three years old that werewolves are not supposed to ever use their abilities in public without being sure it’s safe, well...he bolts for the porch at superhuman speed. He grabs Stiles’ hand just before he can finish sliding the key into the lock.

Stiles looks at him like he’s going crazy. “Derek—“

“Your dad is entertaining guests,” Derek hisses at him. He begging Stiles to understand it. But he can’t say the words more plainly. He respects John and Stiles both too much.

“You’re acting like—“ Stiles cuts himself off. “I mean it’s not like…” He glances at the cars in the driveway. Then he looks back at Derek with a weird expression. “It’s not like—“

But Derek never finds out what it’s not like because someone inside makes a very loud noise and Stiles’ eyes grow horrified. He smacks a hand over them like it can hide him from whatever mental image he’s getting. The other hand joins it by covering one ear like it’ll help block this out. His face is so so red from what Derek can see peeking out from underneath his hands.

Derek fishes the keys from where they’ve fallen on the porch and grabs Stiles’ elbow to get them both out of there. But the noise is picking up and it sounds like—well—things are happening.

Stiles makes a choking sound and uncovers his eyes to make a dash for the car. Derek is right there with him. They practically throw themselves at the car but it’s locked and there’s a—probably hilarious—moment for any outsiders that might catch sight of them when Stiles is hissing at Derek to unlock the fucking car before he has to stab himself to death and Derek is fumbling with the damn keys trying to find the right button on the key fob but nearly dropping the whole key ring twice.

He doesn’t need superhuman hearing to catch what’s happening inside. And from the deep red color on Stiles’ cheeks by the time they finally make it into the car and slam the doors closed, neither does Stiles.

Stiles grabs the keys from his hand, jabs the correct one into the ignition and they peel away from the curb like something is trying to kill them.

——————————————

It takes four blocks for Stiles to remember the speed limit. His hands twitch on the steering wheel.

They don’t make eye contact until they arrive at Derek’s house and Stiles puts the car in park. Even then, they can’t seem to hold each other’s gaze for more than half a second. 

They’re both still red.

No date should ever be this uncomfortable.

Maybe this wasn’t date number five after all. Maybe this was not-date fourteen?

“Um...so I’ll uh, see you? Later?” Stiles verbally fumbles, staring determinedly out the front window.

Derek nods quickly. “Yeah we—I’ll um…”

“Thank you for—“

“Of course.” He grabs the door handle to let himself out, but Stiles grabs a handful of his sleeve and he freezes.

Stiles looks at him, face still red like he’s been sunburned badly. Derek looks back with eyes that are probably still a little wider than normal.

“Seriously,” Stiles says quietly, but there’s a bit of a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you for not letting me go in there.”

And somehow even though this has been the most bizarre end to a date ever, they both crack up. It’s like a release of tension that just can’t be stopped. They sit in the car laughing maniacally until Laura growls something from inside the house about not waking the kids up and Derek makes himself calm down.

He kisses Stiles goodnight and he slides out of the car.

——————————————

Two days later Stiles texts Derek a picture of a cake that says, “Congratulations on your sex life! It sounds adventurous!” There are frosting balloons and confetti, but no suggestive images, thank god.

He kind of naively hopes it’s just a joke at first. But it would seem the cake is for real, because a second photo follows soon after of a bakery box sitting on John’s kitchen table. Then a selfie of Stiles holding a finger to his lips like he’s telling Derek to shush.

He’s pretty sure he won’t be able to look John or Chris or Melissa in the eye for a few weeks. But maybe it’s good that Stiles doesn’t seem upset about his father’s relations. He tries to tell himself that anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn’t the moment that he realizes he has more-than-friendship feelings for Chris. But it’s one moment along the journey to that realization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on to your socks--apparently the rest of this fic is going to be heavy in the feelings for our favorite parental figures. This chapter is an important moment for John as he realizes how much he cares about Chris. I've got plans for a chapter from Melissa's point of view and from Chris's as well. Then of course we'll need at least one chapter of Scott and Allison panicking about being married and having their parents also being in a relationship with each other.

John and Chris are probably a little more drunk than they should be under the guise of watching the football game on TV. It’s just the two of them this week for the Parent Dinner. Melissa had been the one to insist on them having dinner once a week to worry about their kids and related Pack, but she got called in last minute to cover a shift. Dinner had already been set on the table, so it would’ve been silly for Chris to go home, even though they were going to have to reschedule their official Parent Dinner for later in the week now.

Besides, John had known it was Chris and Victoria’s anniversary. Allison told Scott, who told Melissa, who insisted they have dinner that night. When she had gotten the call, Melissa had tried to get out of it. But eventually she caved. Because she cared too much for all the people in her life. So John was left alone with Chris and a perfectly good dinner…and the memory of a threatening look from Melissa that said he had better not fuck this up or he would regret it.

He isn’t exactly great at talking about feelings and all that. But he would do his best. Because even though Chris was pretending to be fine, even John could see his eyes were a little tight around the corners and his shoulders were tensed up. So John does what he does for himself when he was trying not to feel too much. He grabs a few beers, moves the dinner to the living room and turns on a game.

It isn’t a team he particularly cares for. Chris doesn’t complain.

They sit. And they watch. And somewhere after the second beer and first glass of whisky, John starts to talk. He isn’t really thinking too hard about what he’s saying, more focused on keeping a sense for Chris’s body language as the man slowly begins to unwind his tensed muscles.

John tells Chris about the fact that Stiles doesn’t even know all the rules to football. He talks about how he used to watch games with Melissa’s ex when the boys were small—before he realized how much of a bastard the man was. He talks about how the football team at his high school could never seem to win a single game and about how he would sit there in the stands every home game anyway. Somehow it leads into reminiscing about the way Claudia was so fiercely loyal to her own teams that she had refused to cheer for a single Californian team after they moved to Beacon Hills until her Uncle Robbie had badmouthed the whole state on Thanksgiving. And it’s about half way through that story when he realizes he probably shouldn’t be talking about past wives but Chris has already kind of curled in on himself. He’s staring down at his glass like he’s lost in his own memories.

“Victoria was like that too,” Chris says, and his voice is so small it hurts. He’s always acted bigger than life—tougher than steel. It doesn’t feel right to see him looking small.

John doesn’t know what to say. So he waits it out. Maybe Chris needs to let something out.

It comes after a long moment of silence, broken only by the soft sounds of the TV. “Victoria—she…well she always knew what she wanted. She was never one to settle for second best or not good enough. She always knew exactly what she wanted and made sure she got it. I just…”

John barely breathes when he trails off. Damned if he doesn’t wish Melissa were here. Chris looks like he could use one of her hugs. He doesn’t even have pie. They need something more than liquor to soothe this hurt.

Chris’s smile is jagged and pained when it breaks across his face. “I just—I thought she wanted me. You know? But…it turns out…I wasn’t it.”

And all John can think in that moment is that Victoria was a damned fool to let Chris get away from her. But he has no way to put it into words. No way to tell Chris that he deserves better than a woman who would leave him for condemning the murder of innocent werewolves.

It turns out, the Argent family split after Chris’s sister was implicated in the mass murder of almost the entire Hale Pack. John had known Peter Hale and his family personally. They hadn’t been extremely close, but he had known him. They had had friendly conversation at the drug store or at the gas station. He hadn’t known then about werewolves, when the news broke town. Chris had moved into town only a few months after that. John remembered the way he had looked haunted and broken, walking around town with a daughter his own child’s age. He remembered the way Chris had always seemed to be looking over his own shoulder everywhere he went.

John hadn’t gotten to know Chris or Allison for a year or two until Scott was bitten. Allison caught him wolfing out being the school a few days after he was bitten. Stiles had been trying to help him calm down but it wasn't working. Luckily, Allison had helped. She dragged both of the boys to go talk with her dad, and Chris decided they needed to tell Melissa. Everyone ended up at the McCall house and as soon as Melissa understood the basics of what their boys had now become involved with, she called John and demanded he get his ass over to her house immediately and no she didn't care if he was at a crime scene.

That's when he found out about werewolves.

A rogue alpha had come to town, possibly feral. They didn't find out that day, but within the next week they found she bit six teenagers and murdered two people. Chris killed her three days later when they finally tracked her down. He killed her to keep her from slashing John's throat, then shivered his way through a series of dry heaves and near sobs that John had tried his best to pretend he was ignoring.

John would be forever grateful that he had been there for the breakdown when Chris was unable to talk the alpha down. She was acting mad in the woods, rambling on and on about how the world would know now! The world would know there was more! No one had let her live in peace and now her Pack had been murdered so it was time someone else paid. She would raise a Pack and bring everything to light.

She had gone for John with her claws. That was why Chris had shot. And his aim had been true. She went down and even in the dimming light of the evening, John had known she would stay down.

So he stood beside Chris and listened as the man fought to pull himself together. John had been in the military. He knew what PTSD was like. He had seen enough men panic after killing someone. Many of them never expected to feel that panic. But almost everyone did at one point or another.

And when Chris had pulled himself together again, the whole story fell out of him in a rush of words like he had to tell someone or he would crumble to dust. His sister had murdered an innocent Pack. And not just any Pack—the Hale Pack—yes as in Peter Hale, brother to the Hale Pack alpha. He and his daughter had left the family and the business of Hunting for good. His family had supported his sister—including his soon-to-be-ex-wife. They needed somewhere to lie low, and this was the last place he thought his family might search for them. Not that they seemed to have tried. They hadn’t once tried to reach out and contact Chris except for when Victoria emailed him a copy of the divorce papers.

And now, half a decade later, John is sitting on the couch listening to Chris talking like he wonders if he did the right thing.

“She was my everything. For a long time. Before Allison. And I think if Allison hadn’t been so adamant that she was against what Kate had done…I think she would have stuck around if only to try and mold Allison into being her perfect daughter.” Chris shakes his head slowly. His jaw clenches and unclenches like he’s biting down on the words before he can utter them. “I don’t think I ever told you but, my family is run matriarchically. My grandmother ran the family when I was a child, then my own mother. Kate was supposed to take over from her, but she didn’t want the position. So my father made sure I knew to marry someone with ‘spirit’—he called it. Victoria seemed like the perfect wife. She was bold enough to speak her mind in a room full of Hunters all unified against her. She didn’t flinch when my father was an asshole or purposefully tried to scare her. I think I was so amazed by her strength that I fell in love with her without even thinking about it. She was incredible.”

John’s not so sure that’s the word for it, but now isn’t the time to argue. He tries to hide his expression by throwing back another sip of whisky.

“She fit perfectly into the family. She took over the role of leader when my mother was killed even though she knew she was technically only a stopgap until Allison was of age. She stepped in and stepped up and she was…she was everything the family wanted. She was everything I wanted. At the time.” Chris shrugs pitifully. He hasn’t looked at John once since he started talking. He doesn’t seem inclined to now. “It just really gets me that—“

John waits him out, because he knows this is going to be a load of hogwash that he’s gonna have to speak to now.

“She was everything my family wanted. And apparently I’m not.” Chris says it in a rush, like he’s afraid to voice it but can’t help saying it.

Well shit. How did he see that one coming? John takes a slow breath in, trying to calm himself because he feels like he's going to break Chris in this fragile moment if he comes out guns blazing. “Well just to throw my own two cents in here," he starts softly, "but I’m not sure why you would want to be fitting in with them. Now shush I don’t mean you aren’t allowed to be upset they didn’t choose you. I don’t mean you aren’t allowed to be hurt. But Chris..." and he waits until Chris looks at him before saying, "I am so serious about this—you are better than your family. You are a good man. You’ve raised a strong daughter and taught her how to view people who are different than her as still worthy of rights and of freedoms. You take care of the Pack and of Mel and I, and this family? Our family? We will always pick you. You are ours, damnit! So sure, I know today is one of the worst out of the year and I know there’ll be other bad days again--I've got them too. But you had better know that we will pick you every damn time without hesitation.”

Chris looks at him then with eyes that are growing red. John’s pretty sure his own eyes are the same. Chris looks about two seconds away from crumbling, so John shakily grabs hold of the back of his neck, just to remind him that he’s there and that Chris isn’t alone.

It’s then, in that moment, watching Chris try not to break down on his couch, that John realizes he would do almost anything for this man. It’s then that John realizes that—other than with his son—he hasn’t wanted to wrap anyone up in his arms and hide them from the world so badly since Claudia was alive.

It isn’t the moment that he realizes he has more-than-friendship feelings for Chris. But it’s one moment along the journey to that realization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm mentally working on the next scenes. I'm already pretty sure Melissa is the one to actually get the three of them moving in the direction of a relationship.

**Author's Note:**

> I may write a second chapter if it comes to me so that the sheriff can actually be embarrassed but proud of himself for getting the guy as well as the girl.


End file.
